craigslist strategy for finding treasures

7.21.09 | 9:16am

Phil Mansfield for the N.Y. Times

The N.Y.Times recently ran a story about a couple who bought a house in Upstate New York for $95,000 and fixed it up, beautifully, for $10,000, using pure elbow grease and a eye for scavenged and second-hand stuff.

The best nugget of info, to me, was about how to score serious finds on Craigslist: “Using Craigslist successfully means scrolling through the listings every day, not once a month,” said Christina Salway. “Then there’s elbow grease and the desire to fix things up.”

I know a lot of people, myself included, who browse for an hour and then give up, wondering how we miss out on the gutted Air Stream for $2,000, and other great treasures. Or folks that pass up really beautiful, valuable items because they might need a little sprucing up or fixing.

Phil Mansfield for the N.Y.Times

With Ebay, I take daily searches for granted, because I can program it to send me an email alert whenever the item I’m looking for is listed. Because Craigslist doesn’t have this feature, I tend to only check in here-and there, not realizing that real diligence is required. The reason for my lack of success with Craigslist didn’t occur to me until I read it in the Times piece, which was a nice little bonk on the head!

Perseverance furthers.

"Knock. Knock."

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Hi Lee. Please let us know if/when you do find that gem of an apartment. If it’s a diamond-in-the-rough, I want to see how you uncover it’s charm, which, judging from your swell blog, you’ve got to be great at…

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